There are some uno packages I can use with Linux or Windows which are not ported on other OSes. The PostgreSQL interface to name one.
So, I see it as, "you can run crippled versions of OpenOffice on the BSDs".
Other available specific applications do the job better than an OO module.

Makes me remember, in the ole days, StarOffice took over the whole Windows window management. A breakthrough at that time. Why did OpenOffice abandonned that single user interface for a complete desktop?
Question is not " why isn't there a package referenced for FreeBSD ?".
Question should be, why do I still need an OS or even a window manager to run OpenOffice?

There are 300+ Linux distros competing on the way they make it simple to install Firefox and OpenOffice (where did the StarOffice browser go?).

The compiling OpenOffice is real marathon even or quite powerfull machine. I remember that few time I did it just to have nice KDE menu icons that are available after compiling.
By the way, I am surprised that quality of this software is advancing and it gets mature.

I know people hate it when you don't answer the question but instead tack on experience with other software, but I can't resist!

I was an OpenOffice.org/StarOffice user for many years but honestly for my uses Abiword and Gnumeric do just what I need now. There certainly are times when you do need a fully fledged office suite, but I think more people than less would be able to accomplish their work using just these tools.

Plus, they compile, install and run [b]so darn fast[b], on my new Core 2 Duo e8400 FreeBSD 7.0 desktop they both open faster than I can lift my finger off the mouse after clicking their menu icon!

I can't really vouch for KOffice having only lightly used Kspread a few times, but I imagine it's a similar story.

just looking at the porting openoffice to freebsd page there arent that many packages compiled for 6.3 and 7.0. either way there are so many ways that openoffice can be customized for various system options such as adding in KDE support to it and such. from what i hear as well the compile times have been getting faster.

There is no official package but good-day.net provide a binary package for many versions of FreeBSD and many version of OpenOffice.

No official package? That depends how you define official. The OpenOffice page refers you to the FreeBSD ports tree, which I would take as official. Try:

Code:

pkg_add -r openoffice.org-2

In response to those who mention the benefits of compiling it yourself, I will say that I also am a die-hard compiler. However, my current desktop system is fairly dated and there are only 2 things that I use pre-compiled binaries for, which are Firefox and OpenOffice. These are two very-large compiles. Upgrades overnight at one thing, but if I urgently need to install or upgrade for a new feature, a package is the only choice.

Does Open Office perform pretty well on FreeBSD?
I hate using AbiWord because I dont use the GNOME desktop and I hate all the extra gnome libs. The gnome icon theme always messes with my XFCE rodent theme and thunar.

I recently compiled OpenOffice 3-dev on my desktop with -j1. I forgot to define -j8 or -j10, which I use for buildworld. It would've suited this compile very well, but I believe it took about 13 hours to compile.

On that box, I started a screen session to compile editors/openoffice.org-2 before I left work yesterday. When I got in this morning it was finished. (I had to deal with the Sun / java licensing garbage from home, thus the screen session.)

Don't use a package for Openoffice or you will miss out all the goodies compile has to offer

I did. I had openoffice 3 and it was very slow. Yesterday I deinstalled beta and installed 2.4.1 (compile) from ports and it was the same: slow. I was very upset because I used to kake somethin with Impress for work but... I did came earlier at work this morning and use MS Office. As I remember lower versions were much faster (on Linux was faster than FreeBSD but was faster on FreeBSD as now).

Even on my slow machine I think it takes eight hours. So I set it up to run overnight. It is not a big deal.

I did the same and I don't complain about compailing. Problem is that OpenOffice is very slow. Just for example:

Today I had a presentation at work. Yesterday I made at work 80% of my presentation on MS Office (Powerpoint), save file for powerpoint XP. Openoffice needed almost one minut to open a file. I tried to change a background of slide and I thought that program freeze... It need more than minut and I had 18 slides. And I did what I wrote before: went to work earlier and finished on MS WIndows Powerpoint.